There is something – when reading this book – that makes me visualize a photographic darkroom, from the time when pictures were still being developed from a negative. One would submerge photographic paper into trays full of chemical baths, then pull it with pincers, wash, let it dry, and, in the course of all this, see the images gradually emerge, take shape, gaining full contrast and defined contours. The figures in the photo would become distinguishable, the pictures would tell a story, and would become engraved on the mind of the viewer. It would be a riveting process of emergence: where once there had been only white photographic paper, now there was a testimony, a record of occurrence, a document of existence, and a newly shaped epistemological space.

In Early Cinema, Modernity and Visual Culture: The Imaginary of the Balkans, Ana Grgić opens up her darkroom to deliver to the world the early moving images that she is working with – of a lost, yet revered past – flickering and faint shadows yet discernible and spellbinding. Tactile. Haptic. She makes faces, facades, and chronicles come to light; she orders, names, and links them. She transforms the void into a story.

And yes, it was a void before. Early Balkan cinema simply did not ‘exist’ a few decades ago. The encyclopaedias and guides on early cinema were there, yet there was little in these volumes to suggest the existence of any faint – let alone thriving – film culture across the Balkan lands. All attention was focused on the West, with the occasional mention of what took place in the lands of former Austria–Hungary. The specialized film festivals would play, occasionally, a film from these territories, and such rare occurrences would be considered a colourful breakthrough. Whatever the Balkans had to contribute was away from the eyes and away from the mind. Cinema did not appear to have any discernible presence in this part of the world. Nor to have left any significant utterances.

In Ana Grgić's text, the absent films, which have only sporadically been referenced over time, now emerge and transform into fully fledged cinematic events – from Grandmother Despina and The Weavers (1907), or The Journey to Sofia (1909), to accomplished albeit nationalist features like The Life and Deeds of the Immortal Leader Karađorđe (1911) and The Independence of Romania (1912) – and become pillars of a new round of witnessing.